The present invention relates to a new and improved construction of apparatus for loosening an imbricated formation or array of printed products transversely to their surface.
The printed products which depart from a printing press usually arrive in an imbricated product formation, i.e., in such a configuration or array wherein the front or leading region of one printed product directly bears upon the rear or trailing region of a leading printed product. Such imbricated product formation also constitutes one of the most advantageous formations in order to be able to continuously transport the arriving or inbound printed products by means of appropriate conveyor devices.
If there are to be performed further automated operations at the printed products arriving in the imbricated product formation, then heretofore it was necessary to release or detach the printed products out of the imbricated product formation. This was accomplished either by initially stacking the printed products and thereafter removing single product copies out of the product stack, or, however, in that the imbricated product formation arriving from the conveyor device was accelerated to such a degree that successive printed products no longer overlapped, rather were separated by gaps or spaces from one another. In both cases there was lost the original imbricated product formation or configuration. This also meant that following the completion of the further operations which were accomplished at the individual product copies, it was necessary, as a general rule, to again reestablish the imbricated product formation which was most advantageous for the conveying of the products.